This actually takes me back to the 90's and I'm thinking of CUCD's and AFCD's (Amiga Format & CU Amiga). They were bootable and contained Workbench in its entirety from what I can remember. From memory, you could create a whole Workbech 3.1 system if you wanted to...and that's one way I upgraded my Workbench files - I just copied later versions of libraries and other system files from CU Cd's over to my 3.0 system to upgrade it. I'm sure I wasn't alone in doing that.
I wonder if those magazines had to foot the bill to do this? After all, CBM was history and it was Escom, then GW2000. If it was only $100 per year back in 1992, I think that would make it $200 x 12 months probably for a new release each month back in mid-late 90's of the cover cd's. Still peanuts though for what it is, I mean they gave away Workbench3.1 every month!
It would be interesting to know what indeed those magazines had to pay for the license. If anything, because if you think about it - there was never a need to have a bootable cd, let alone including Workbench3.1...
Yes, there were CD32 owners, but serious users would have bought a computer with a keyboard if they wanted to use utilities and the like from magazine cover cd's.
